Lived experience of stay-at-home dads: a narrative inquiry, The

2015 Summer.Research on stay-at-home dads (SAHDs) has not kept pace with the increase in the trend and is lacking the in-depth description of their lived experience. The purpose of this narrative inquiry was to describe and thereby better understand the lived experience of SAHDs and how they make meaning within the role. Narrative inquiry works to restory the stories of the participants by gathering data, analyzing it, searching for themes, and rewriting it in a sequence that makes sense. In this study, in order to fully examine the lived experience of SAHDs, I encompassed a constructivist paradigm, which allowed for the evolution of the meaning and process. I realize that my participation altered the reality of the experience and that the stories that I present only captured brief moments of time; however, I drew heavily upon my therapeutic and clinical backgrounds to create a warm and compassionate environment which guided the way for an inductive exploration into each dad's lived experience. I primarily used unstructured interviews that focused more on Rogerian therapeutic principles than direct Socratic questioning; however, I maintained boundaries which provided focus, shape, and scope. These unstructured interviews provided the space for the participants to talk freely and openly as I obtained very rich quotations from each dad which I have presented within the narratives. By including these excerpts, often in their entirety, I maintain the integrity of the process, meaning making, and authenticity of each individual story. This narrative inquiry contains the lived experience of four SAHDs, ending with my own account. Each dad's narrative is presented individually, uniquely, and told in its entirety followed by my holistic content analysis which explores the themes of both the inner and outer world of each dad as embodied by his past, present, and possibility of the future. By doing so, this study gave voice to the SAHD experience and opened doors for future research and understanding. The individual and cumulative effects of the narratives have provided avenues for understanding for readers to make their personal meaning of the lived experience of SAHDs. I have also provided recommendations for clinicians who are working with SAHDs or their families. I conclude with my journey through this qualitative inquiry and a brief letter to SAHDs

The Apparently Decaying Orbit of WASP-12

We present new transit and occultation times for the hot Jupiter WASP-12b. The data are compatible with a constant period derivative: $\dot{P}=-29 \pm 3$ ms yr$^{-1}$ and $P/\dot{P}= 3.2$ Myr. However, it is difficult to tell whether we have observed orbital decay, or a portion of a 14-year apsidal precession cycle. If interpreted as decay, the star's tidal quality parameter $Q_\star$ is about $2\times 10^5$. If interpreted as precession, the planet's Love number is $0.44\pm 0.10$. Orbital decay appears to be the more parsimonious model: it is favored by $\Delta\chi^2=5.5$ despite having two fewer free parameters than the precession model. The decay model implies that WASP-12 was discovered within the final $\sim$0.2% of its existence, which is an unlikely coincidence but harmonizes with independent evidence that the planet is nearing disruption. Precession does not invoke any temporal coincidence, but does require some mechanism to maintain an eccentricity of $\approx$0.002 in the face of rapid tidal circularization. To distinguish unequivocally between decay and precession will probably require a few more years of monitoring. Particularly helpful will be occultation timing in 2019 and thereafter.Comment: 10 pages [AAS journals, in press, note added in proof

Blazing A New Frontier

My life changed drastically two years ago when my daughter was born. My wife and I prepared for parenthood as well as any other couple by attending parenting preparation classes, reading books, and talking late into the evenings. However, we were exploring the additional elements of unchartered gender roles. Now two years later, I am a stay-at-home father (SAHF). I am one of the many men across the United States taking on this new and unfamiliar frontier. The roles of men and women have been changing rapidly in today’s communities, especially how they relate to division of family labor in the home. Like me, many fathers are choosing to stay at home and raise the children while more women are staying in the work force. The U.S. Census Bureau (2002) reported an 18% increase in fathers who stayed at home from 1994 to 2001. Furthermore, the 2006 Census estimated that 159,000 men remained out of the labor force for at least one year to be the primary caregiver to a child while their wives or partners worked (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006). Despite the growing trend of fathers staying home to be with their children there is very little research in this area. This paper will address the challenges that this new frontier is presenting both men and women and I will draw from the current literature and my own personal experience

Using Chemical Synthesis to Investigate Protein Glycosylation: O-Mannosylation Site Specifically Modulates the Stability and Cellulose Binding Affinity of Family 1 Carbohydrate Binding Modules

Lignocellulosic biomass is a massive, but largely unexploited potential source of biofuel. The underutilization of this resource stems largely from the fact that cellulose is difficult to digest into smaller, useable sugar units. Natural lignocellulosic biomass is primarily degraded by fungi, which use Family 1 carbohydrate-binding modules (CBMs) to target cellulose for degradation. Family 1 CBMs are glycosylated, but the effects of glycosylation on CBM function remain unknown. Here, the effects of O-mannosylation of the Family 1 CBM from the Trichoderma reesei Family 7 cellobiohydrolase (TrCel7A) are investigated at three glycosylation sites, Thr-1, Ser-3 and Ser-14. The work was made possible by the development of a convenient one-pot synthetic procedure for glycosylated Family 1 CBMs. A library of 20 CBM glycoforms was synthesized with mono-, di-, or tri-saccharides at each glycosylation site. The binding affinity, proteolytic stability, and thermostability of each synthetic glycoform was systematically studied. The results show that even though CBM mannosylation does not induce significant changes to the protein’s secondary structure, it can increase the thermolysin cleavage resistance up to 50-fold. Fungi are known to excrete several proteases along with CBM-bearing cellulases, so improved proteolytic stability may improve cellulose digestion efficiency by reducing CBM degradation. O-mannosylation was also shown to increases the thermostability of CBM glycoforms up to 16°C, and a mannose disaccharide at Ser3 has the largest themostabilizing effect. Thermostability is an important property of industrial enzymes because bioreactors are often operated at elevated temperatures. In the binding affinity tests, the glycoforms with small glycans at each site displayed the highest binding affinities for crystalline cellulose, and the glycoform with a single mannose at each of the three positions had the highest binding affinity; a 7.4 fold increase compared to the unglycosyalted CBM. High CBM binding affinity has been linked to increased cellulose digestion rate by fungal cellulases, so these results may have important implications in biofuels production. This study demonstrated how chemical synthesis can be used to systematically study glycosylation and lead to the identification of two CBM glycoforms with particularly desirable stability and binding properties

Metabolic control of gene transcription in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: the role of the epigenome

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is estimated to affect 24% of the global adult population. NAFLD is a major risk factor for the development of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, as well as being strongly associated with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. It has been proposed that up to 88% of obese adults have NAFLD, and with global obesity rates increasing, this disease is set to become even more prevalent. Despite intense research in this field, the molecular processes underlying the pathology of NAFLD remain poorly understood. Hepatic intracellular lipid accumulation may lead to dysregulated tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle activity and associated alterations in metabolite levels. The TCA cycle metabolites alpha-ketoglutarate, succinate and fumarate are allosteric regulators of the alpha-ketoglutarate-dependent dioxygenase family of enzymes. The enzymes within this family have multiple targets, including DNA and chromatin, and thus may be capable of modulating gene transcription in response to intracellular lipid accumulation through alteration of the epigenome. In this review, we discuss what is currently understood in the field and suggest areas for future research which may lead to the development of novel preventative or therapeutic interventions for NAFLD

TITAN Wireless Camera Control System

The Titan Camera Control System is an eletromechanical device that allows the user to wirelessly control a camera’s digital operations as well as physical orientation through the use of a mobile device application. The Titan system accepts input in the form of virtual user commands on the mobile app and performs system output in the form of sending photos/video from the camera back to the app as well as changing the orientation of the camera in accordance with the user’s commands

Understanding extreme quasar optical variability with CRTS: I. Major AGN flares

There is a large degree of variety in the optical variability of quasars and it is unclear whether this is all attributable to a single (set of) physical mechanism(s). We present the results of a systematic search for major flares in AGN in the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey as part of a broader study into extreme quasar variability. Such flares are defined in a quantitative manner as being atop of the normal, stochastic variability of quasars. We have identified 51 events from over 900,000 known quasars and high probability quasar candidates, typically lasting 900 days and with a median peak amplitude of $\Delta m = 1.25$ mag. Characterizing the flare profile with a Weibull distribution, we find that nine of the sources are well described by a single-point single-lens model. This supports the proposal by Lawrence et al. (2016) that microlensing is a plausible physical mechanism for extreme variability. However, we attribute the majority of our events to explosive stellar-related activity in the accretion disk: superluminous supernovae, tidal disruption events, and mergers of stellar mass black holes.Comment: 25 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication by MNRA

Connecting the time domain community with the Virtual Astronomical Observatory

The time domain has been identified as one of the most important areas of astronomical research for the next decade. The Virtual Observatory is in the vanguard with dedicated tools and services that enable and facilitate the discovery, dissemination and analysis of time domain data. These range in scope from rapid notifications of time-critical astronomical transients to annotating long-term variables with the latest modeling results. In this paper, we will review the prior art in these areas and focus on the capabilities that the VAO is bringing to bear in support of time domain science. In particular, we will focus on the issues involved with the heterogeneous collections of (ancillary) data associated with astronomical transients, and the time series characterization and classification tools required by the next generation of sky surveys, such as LSST and SKA.Comment: Submitted to Proceedings of SPIE Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes and Systems IV, Amsterdam, 2012 July 2-

A possible close supermassive black-hole binary in a quasar with optical periodicity

Quasars have long been known to be variable sources at all wavelengths. Their optical variability is stochastic, can be due to a variety of physical mechanisms, and is well-described statistically in terms of a damped random walk model. The recent availability of large collections of astronomical time series of flux measurements (light curves) offers new data sets for a systematic exploration of quasar variability. Here we report on the detection of a strong, smooth periodic signal in the optical variability of the quasar PG 1302-102 with a mean observed period of 1,884 $\pm$ 88 days. It was identified in a search for periodic variability in a data set of light curves for 247,000 known, spectroscopically confirmed quasars with a temporal baseline of $\sim9$ years. While the interpretation of this phenomenon is still uncertain, the most plausible mechanisms involve a binary system of two supermassive black holes with a subparsec separation. Such systems are an expected consequence of galaxy mergers and can provide important constraints on models of galaxy formation and evolution.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures. Published online by Nature on 7 January 201